Fireworks
by Nekare
Summary: As 1978 begins with a shower of sparks and a kiss that shouldn't have happened, Remus has to cope with both a family loss and the loss of inocence as a war nears, all the same time as he tries to figure out just where is his relationship with Sirius going
1. Drowning in Light

This story was written for the first half of January in an LJ community, **blanketforts**. Sadly, this is unbeta-ed, but I do hope that won't stop you from liking it. Reviews are the nicest things in the world!

**Drowning in Light**

**By: Nekare**

The fireworks leave colorful imprints behind Remus' eyelids, bright colors on starless night with everything moving in and out of focus, a red Chinese-looking dragon made of sparks and magic dancing in the sky as the alcohol in his blood makes the floor shake. Remus laughs with abandon, worries drowned in the now-empty bottle rolling in the ground; a new year, a new chance, a new everything just seconds away.

Sirius is dancing with him, close and too warm and everything Remus hasn't allowed himself to dream about for months now, not since Sirius' betrayal. Tonight though, he doesn't care, and he brings Sirius closer, a hand on his half-knotted tie and eyes ablaze. Sirius kisses him, slow and hot, and something in the back of Remus' minds tells him Sirius has never kissed him before and that this is strange; but he ignores it, the way he's ignoring James and Peter's shocked looks their way, the way he ignores the fact that they're dancing just in the edge of Hogwart's smallest tower.

He hasn't touched Sirius since the night Snape could have died; so he basks in the feeling of skin against skin, mouth against mouth, and when Sirius laughs and tickles him, he laughs too. He can almost feel the headache hiding around the corner, waiting for a distraction to pound; but Sirius hands slip under the collar of his shirt and he stops thinking, stops fearing, stops lying to himself that he doesn't want anything to do with Sirius anymore.

The same annoying voice tells him he'll regret it tomorrow, but for once, Remus does what he feels like doing, as he's showered with sparks of every color possible with the taste of Sirius still in his mouth. He smiles to the New Year, as the zero on his lips is swallowed by Sirius', and he can almost see it smiling back.

(Sirius breathes a s_orry _into his ear, and Remus' knees buckle.)


	2. Living in Denial

No plot yet, but it's just a couple of chapters away. Remus learns the repercussions to his acts. Reviews will be loved!

**Living in Denial **

**By: Nekare**

_Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon  
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss  
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is  
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds;_

_Rupert Brooke_

The last firework goes off with a bang inside Remus' head, and the bright red sparks leave place to his more usual scarlet canopy as he wakes up suddenly, gasping for air, shuddering as he realizes his warm blanket slid off his body, leaving him open to the cold and every kind of pain he deserves after last night's madness. He pulls the blanket close, lips trembling and muscles aching.

His mouth feels dry, stuffed; but beneath layers of alcohol and toffee and smoke he can still taste the indescribable taste of the boy that had betrayed him; the forbidden fruit Remus can't help but want more of. A groan comes from his throat, getting lost on his life's only solace – his cool sheets. His own noise sounds deafening to his ears, rumbling back and forth inside his skull, echoes of pain and echoes of lovely times past and times ahead, devoid of Sirius, after the stupidity he committed last night (kissing and sighing and admitting to wanting with so little words and too many touches).

Maybe, maybe there's a way to blame it all on the alcohol, on the year-ending craze, on the music and the light that had brought his blood alive.

Maybe he should just bury himself beneath his blankets, and stay there forever.

A heavy weight settles just beside his lower back, and Remus knows with accuracy born out of sunny days together that it's Sirius. He stills, remembering that old Muggle tell that if you play dead in front of a bear it will leave you alone. The air is getting stale and too warm inside the cocoon of blankets, the New Year's light going through them, Gryffindor red-colored.

"I know you're awake," says Sirius from the other side, and Remus closes his eyes, willing himself to stop breathing. Sirius puts a hand on his back, and the gasp that comes out of Remus' mouth gives him away.

"No, I'm not."

A heavy sigh. "Look, if you're going to be a bloody girl about this, then-"

Remus sits up so fast he gets tangled in the sheets, his head pounding like hell. "Piss _off_, Sirius, you don't get to talk to me like that after what you did to me!" They're too close for Remus' comfort, both flustered and panting and the spark of _desire_ that's been twisting his entrails for months is there, fueled by his anger (and pain, and lust, and that dreaded L word that Remus doesn't – can't allow himself to feel for a betrayer).

"I fucking _said_ I was sorry!" Sirius keeps looking him in the eye, and Remus can hear honesty in his tone, edged with desperation.

"And what good has your word been to me?" says the instinct-based part of Remus, the part that wouldn't trust anyone with his secrets if it were up to it, the part fed by too many visits to the Werewolf Registry and nights in the Ministry's cellars.

Sirius rakes his hands through his hair, finally breaking their gaze as he closes his eyes and turns his face to the right. "I- I though you'd be willing to forget about that by now." He says in a completely different voice, tired and worn, head lowered and his elbows resting on his knees.

"How could I ever, Padfoot?" The affectionate name slips off his mouth easily, and he mutters a curse when he realizes. Sirius though, turns to him; head still lowered in an act more proper of Padfoot than him, all submission and apologies, and Remus' throat goes dry at the sight. And then the anger it's back. "Stop that! It's just low using that kind of tricks with me."

"Well what do you want me to do, then? Go down on my knees?" says Sirius looking like Sirius again, tall, straight back and eyes shining with anger. "I'll fucking do anything, Remus!"

Remus remains quiet, playing with a white sheet edge. His chin is up, trying to show the determination he doesn't really feel. He had waited for this conversation to happen for months, but he hadn't imagined it having it with James' snores as a background, on his bed, as he's wearing his second-worst pyjamas.

Sirius sighs again. "I'd thought that after last night, things would be okay."

Last night. Oh shit.

Remus turns his head the other way, blushing bright red under Sirius' gaze. "Last night?" he asks in a broken voice, wishing, hoping Sirius will buy the supposed amnesia.

"I know you remember, so don't even try denying it." Sirius doesn't look at him as he says it, and Remus notices with a vague feeling of satisfaction that he's blushing too.

"Look, last night, was, um…" _wonderful, amazing, everything I've dreamt of for years_ "A mistake." Remus averts his eyes, and looks out of the window.

Sirius turns as if he had been slapped. "What?" his mouth is hanging open, as if he couldn't believe what he's been told. "What do you mean with a mistake?"

"Exactly that, Sirius, a drunken mistake." he lies with a shrug. Sirius looks like he's going to murder something, and Remus can't help but feel apprehensive.

Without any kind of warning, Sirius grabs the collar of his hole infested shirt, and drags him forward, a sudden kiss that's bound to leave bruises and that leaves Remus' mind in a complete and utter blank. Remus lets himself be kissed, too numb to do anything else, trapped in the blankets and depending on Sirius' balance after the movement takes his equilibrium away.

(The world spins, dark hair and clear eyes and warm mouth, everything that feels real in this moment).

Sirius lets him go, pushing him back to the bed in where he lays panting and wanting and waiting for _something_, closed eyes and erratic heartbeat. Sirius's weight on his bed disappears, but he doesn't dare looking up, doesn't dare looking at Sirius.

"Fuck _you_ and your mistakes, Remus." There are footsteps, and Remus knows he will leave the room, to go Merlin knows where, and he can't let him go like this.

"You have no right to talk to me like that, you bastard!" he says lifting himself up to his elbows, not knowing exactly what he's saying. Sirius gives him the finger, not bothering to turn to face him, and he closes the door with as much strength as he can muster, waking Peter and James up in the process.

Remus sinks back into his bed, hands covering his face and very desperately wanting to scream his guts out. Outside, bruise-purple clouds shroud the sky and Remus can feel something coming, but whether is rain, snow, or loneliness; he can't tell.

(He eventually goes back to sleep, and Sirius haunts him in his dreams).


	3. Snow Globe

And James makes his appearance! Not so much of an eventful chapter, but friendships had to be built in order to continue. Hope you like it, and remember, reviews are better than chocolate! XD

**Snow Globe**

**By: Nekare**

Remus wakes up for the second time of the day with wrongness weighting heavy on his mind, slipping with dirty socks and empty bottles in his way to the bathroom. He falls just when he is about to enter, the guilty criminal being Sirius' shirt (which is just highly fitting, Remus thinks), and he just lays there, halfway in and halfway out, the same way he feels about life and joy and sex (and Sirius). He laughs, a little, out of desperation and of irony and something else that feels like swallowing back tears but he doesn't quite want to name.

He flees the room when Peter and James come back from breakfast, which Remus avoided in favor of his sick stomach and his somewhat forsaken dignity, muttering and fidgeting and avoiding everybody's eyes. He strolls by the lake, wishing it was frozen so he could skate the way he used to do with his mother when he was eight.

(When he actually understood life).

In winter, everything in Hogwarts goes white, trapped in time and covered in snow as long as the eye can see, pristine and pure and alive with the anxious whispers of teenagers in classes waiting to go out after the first frost. Remus walks, slowly, and stares in wonder at a lonely flower buried in a pile of snow, vibrant and contradictory with its bright pink petals. Remus wants to think of a metaphor for it, something about beauty transcending time and hope in the worst times, but he's not really in the mood.

Instead, he classifies it as living poetry, and leaves it at that.

"Are you done sulking?" says James behind him, and Remus is so startled that he squeals a bit in a quite undignified way. He doesn't wait for an answer before settling himself on a semi-dry rock just on the edge of the lake, motioning for Remus to sit with him. Remus goes, but he can't stop his thumbs from moving in that nervous way that always gives him away.

"So, care to enlighten me in last night's events?" says James again, and Remus bites his lower lip after a long sigh.

"…No?"

"All right, then I'll just put my marvelous brain to use and try to explain them myself. Just nod if I'm on the right track, okay?" Remus sighs again, but he knows better than trying to make James forget an idea. "So, um, you and Sirius got the hots for each other, I can at least see that, uh, I think, but-"

"It's not like that," Remus interrupts, feeling awkward and bare while talking about this. "It's more like, I don't know, um, I- shit, I've no idea what's going on." He holds his knees close to his chest, resting his chin on top of them.

James looks as confused as he is. "Um, but you two looked, quite, er, friendly –if you catch my drift – yesterday, and well, one would guess you two would care for each other in that special, special way I care for dear Lily the queen of my heart." His speech is slightly ruined by the faraway look his eyes take as he speaks of the red-haired girl that's just starting to warm up to him. "You do, right? like _like_ him, I mean. And don't you dare lie to me, Remus Lupin." He says a moment later when he gets his bearings back.

James pokes him in his stomach, repeatedly, until he squeaks a barely audible "Yes, all right? Wait, _stop it_ !" Remus looks ahead in protest, blushing red and feeling too uncomfortable with the idea of having spilled the last secret he had tried keeping for himself.

"Well then, you like him, he seemed to like you back - if his tongue in your mouth is any kind of indication, so well, you and him, - fuck, but this is going to be so odd when it comes to pronouns."

Remus laughs against his will, and James laughs along with him, too loud for a comment that isn't really that funny in the end. James grabs a handful of snow and throws it to Remus' face, and soon they're mock-fighting with snow dripping inside of their clothes, laughing and breathing in the easy air between them and the ice up their noses.

They end up laying flat on their backs, James wriggling desperately from the snowball that had got inside his shirt. "Nice to know you haven't gone all nancy-boy, huh?"

"You wish Potter, I could make you plead for mercy anytime I wanted," says Remus with a slight smile, still looking up at the dark skies, clouds forming a thick blanket for the sun, snow getting ready to fall dream-white to the ground and accepting their gray future deaths in the form of muddy slush. They stay still for some minutes, and then Remus goes back to their earlier conversation. "It's not as easy as that, James, but I appreciate the fact that you're willing to accept it."

"I know," James says in his serious tone, the one he ever hardly uses. "God, everything's gone mad in one day. Yesterday, everything was clear: You wanted to hate Padfoot forever, he was alternating between acting indifferent and begging for forgiveness and no one was trying to shove their tongues down a mate's throat." He sighs. "I miss those days. They were simple."

"Tell me about it. I don't even know if he means it, or if it was some kind of trick on his part to get me to lower my defenses."

James sits up, shaking his head. "It pains me that you think so low of him, Moony. He was far too drunk to fake anything, you dimwit."

"Has he given me a reason to think better of him?" Remus starts moving his arms in the snow, making a featherless snow angel that is screaming _Forget and forgive_ into his ear. He wants to give him horns and a tail, just so it won't contradict him. "I'm _trying_ James, I am, I fucking _want _to trust him again. But he's not making it exactly easy for me."

"Well do it then, trust him. You won't gain anything if you don't risk it all, Remus."

"I do think that sounded quite mature, Mister Potter," Remus smiles up at him, and James smiles back, shaking snow out of the mess he likes to call hair.

"Well _someone_ needs to be mature around, with you two acting so damn childish and having this sudden and yucky urges to meet in enclosed spaces, and Peter being desperate about that Marcia girl in Ravenclaw, which he's trying to get under old mistletoe right now, by the way. He hasn't got the idea that it's only accepted in Christmas, the old chap."

Remus goes quiet again, not knowing exactly what to say. "James, seriously, thanks for not running away with this whole gay business. Hell, _I'm _not completely comfortable with it yet, but you're acting bloody decent."

James chuckles, and helps Remus to his feet, after he cleans his glasses in one of the only dry spots of his cloak. "Look mate, if I was going to be squeamish about things, I would've run away back in the day when I found out you're supposedly a blood-thirsty Dark creature, wouldn't I?"

"Good point," says Remus as they walk slowly back to the castle, his humor somewhat better than before.

"Thought so. Just don't ever try something with me, please. I don't think my poor heart could take it."

"Ah, so you wouldn't like a threesome?" James pushes him, and Remus ends up sinking in a spectacularly big snow pile.

(The laughter dies in his throat some minutes later, when he enters the Common Room and Sirius turns to him from his place by the window across the room, and the air leaves his lungs when the gray eyes stay focused on him every step up the way to the dorm. Sirius takes a snowflake out of his hair with a shrug when he finally comes up, and Remus feels so faint he might disappear.)


	4. Smudged Ink

Plot, here I go! This is the turning point of the story, and with that in mind, this has been one of my favorite chapters to write. That day's prompt was **Tea.** Thanks so much to the people who have left a review, since they just make my day. :)

**Smudged Ink**

**By: Nekare**

Remus escapes from his crumbling convictions the next evening, hiding under the dark (yet not as Dark as himself) trees in the Forbidden Forest, covered with the powder white snow he knows Sirius always dreamt about while in grey London ( he catches himself at mid-thought, and then he doesn't want to know, doesn't want to think, doesn't want to feel).

He stands with his back against an oak, cold seeping slowly into his winter coat, dampening it, but Remus isn't sure he minds too much. He keeps his hands inside his pockets, where they continue to tremble, tinged with an almost translucent blue right on the fingertips, the same as his lips, the same as his muddled thoughts; but Remus refuses to go and face Sirius, sitting in silence by the creaking fire in the Common Room, dark hair and dark aura, alone since no one can stand him in such a brooding mood.

A tiny part of Remus, the one he keeps trying to push down into oblivion (the wary part of his mind that's world-tired and filled with petulant pride), is satisfied that Sirius if _finally_ being miserable about the whole thing.

The rest of him (the part nurtured by his mother's loving hands while she bandaged his wounds, and the feeling of his friends fur under his fingers), every other cell in Remus' body that just aches and wants and _denies_ himself any kind of small pleasure; that part only wants to jump into Sirius' arms and be done with what his brain tells him to be a childish argument.

When Remus sighs, his fogged exhalation of air mingles with the flutter of wings from an Owl. The bird stands shortly on his shoulders, offering its leg with impatience, not caring about Remus' confused expression. He opens the letter with shaky fingers, but the trembling transfers to every inch of his body as his wide eyes move across the blotched words. The Owl is long gone when Remus finishes reading the letter, and by then every single drop of blood is gone from his face. The parchment slips to the ground, falling off from numb fingers and getting wet in the snow, ink getting smudged.

Remus falls to his knees, his world having turned out of control without his knowledge.

His father has died.

---

Night has fallen when Remus hears footsteps, and in the darkness the snow seems to glow bright and pure, a study in contrast. Remus's head turns a bit towards the sound, and then there's Sirius amidst the trees, breathing fast and looking far more anxious than Remus knows he would ever let himself show.

"Look, you little shit, I'm only here because both James and Peter practically forced me to, so don't-" he stops as soon as he sees Remus, kneeling in the snow with half frozen tears on his face, blue lips and red eyes. Remus doesn't want anyone to see him this way, broken and lost and trembling like a leaf on the wind; but he also needs an excuse to stop staring at the now soft parchment, the same way he has been for more than two hours.

"Oh, fuck," says Sirius as he rushes to him, taking off his thick coat on the way. He crouches in front of him, just before he puts his coat on top of Remus' shaking shoulders. "Remus, what happened? Are you hurt?" Remus moves his head slightly in the letter's direction, not trusting himself to speak.

Sirius reads it quickly, scanning its contents with eyes that widen more the lower he gets. When he finally lowers the parchment, his mouth is open as well, eyes fixed in Remus' trembling figure. He tries to speak, but after the fourth failed attempt he just lets the letter fall to the ground and launches himself to Remus in a bone crushing hug.

One of Sirius' hands touches Remus' cheek, and he separates a little, a small distance Remus just cannot accept right now. "Oh God, you're _freezing_! We've got to go back inside, I- I'll make you some tea, or well, have the house elves make you some tea, and-"

"No." mutters Remus in a small voice, cutting the flow of words from Sirius' lips. He throws himself against Sirius, cold nose brushing his neck, wanting to forget everything (the stupid fight, Sirius' stupidity) and nothing (his father reading him stories by the broken radiator, buried beneath a pile of blankets to escape the cold). Sirius' body heat seeps into his bones, but he keeps on trembling against Sirius, wishing it would hide his sobs.

They stay there for a while, holding each other too tightly, getting covered with a thin layer of new born snow, impervious to the beauty surrounding them. They're silent, gentle touches becoming words of grief and mourning, of comfort and warmth.

(Like the two sides of the coin of life).

A kiss in Remus' ear, and he wants to melt.

Remus' sight is blurring slightly, but Sirius' neck, face, hands, stay in focus; a constant he's just realized could be gone any time. He holds to his arms with fingers too numb to even be felt by Sirius through the multiple layers of cloth, and Sirius finally breaks the silence. "That's it, you're lips are getting purple already. We're going back in." Remus wants to say no, wants to say he'd rather stay here and turn into an ice sculpture; but he's shivering too much to even shake his head.

Sirius helps him up, and he stumbles once, twice, innumerable times as they wade through the thick snow, holding onto each other and looking ahead for Hogwarts candle-lit figure.

That night, the four boys sit close on Remus' bed, piling blankets on top of him and forcing warm tea down his throat (a fulfilled promise by Sirius). Peter, who's been researching healing Charms for a project, informs them that Remus had only been another hour away to do some serious damage to himself, and the silence that follows is drunk with fear.

Remus finally stops feeling the cold biting at his soul, but he doesn't stop trembling for the rest of the night. He doesn't sleep, and instead he stays up watching ice stalactites growing outside the window (translucent and cold, the same way he feels) and tangling his fingers again and again into the dark fur of the dog beside him.

The letter is left beneath the oak to decay.


	5. Mourning Over Spilled Water

Ah, angst is so very good to the soul XD That day's prompt was **boots on puddles of melted snow.** Thanks so much for the reviews, and remember, they're the chicken soup for the author's soul. :)

**Mourning Over Spilled Water**

**By: Nekare**

The remnants of the Dark Mark still hover on top of the Lupin's household when the four boys arrive, reflecting emerald in the puddle of melted snow in which Remus wants to drown. He steps on the puddle with more force than necessary, splashing water around. Tiny waves erase the reflection for a minute, and Remus' mind eases for the time it takes it to reappear.

Dumbledore's signed paper allowing him to come home is at the bottom of his pocket, the other three are supposedly still in Gryffindor Tower. His mother is standing on the threshold, hands clutched tightly around what Remus can recognize as one of his father's handkerchiefs, as red-eyed and restless looking as Remus himself. He runs the last steps until he has her in his arms, and then they're sobbing together, muttering lost words and sweet nothings neither really hears. His three friends stand just a few steps behind, hunched and uncomfortable; swallowing back the words they don't know how to say.

They're already late, and Remus only gets a few seconds alone with the empty shell of his father, his mouth opening and closing again, trying to speak, wanting to scream himself hoarse and let the tiny ball of emotions buried deep in his throat, asphyxiating him, out. He's breathing hard and he wants to share some of the oxygen with his father, breathe life into the cold unmarked body.

His mother enters the room, looking like a disgraced queen with her black (as mourning, as death, as their hearts right now) frock, and Remus mutters a quiet _See you soon_ before the body is taken away for the service.

The cemetery's snow goes gray after three dozen black-clad people stand close together around the casket, the same shade as the downcast sky, but Remus finds it rather fitting. There are tears on his cheeks, falling to the white rose he's grabbing too hard, thorns digging into his skin, but he doesn't make any kind of sound; the same choked silenced he's kept since he woke up, since James created an illegal portkey, since the new day didn't bring his father back.

Remus grabs his mother's hand as the coffin is lowered to the ground, and the reassurance presence of his friends behind him is everything that keeps him from throwing himself to the final opening in the frozen ground.

---

Remus has always thought reunions after funerals are awfully hypocritical, but he has never felt such a cold stab of anger at seeing people laughing in corners quite as much as right now. The house smells of strong cheese from the appetizers, and Remus opens a window to let some fresh air in, a few snowflakes falling on his hair, turning it white, and Remus suddenly knows it will someday look like that. He takes his head out in the cold, his nose getting red immediately. Someone pokes him in the stomach, and he turns to see Peter carrying a large drink and an apologetic smile.

"I- I'm here, you know?" he says, and the corner of Remus' lips curl a bit upwards just before he downs the drink.

"I know, Peter. Thank you." They don't say much after that, but then again, they don't need to.

---

Some hours later, a muttered conversation between some of his father's co-workers gains his attention. The words _beast _, _menace _and _got what he deserved _burn in his mind, and he seethes in silence, wanting to hit something, wanting to i hurt /i something. He looks around the living room, and he sees Sirius in a far corner looking mildly frightened as he gets accosted by Remus' female cousins. Remus has another glass of whatever liquor is resting on the table before going and grabbing his wrist without any kind of explanation, much to the girls chagrin.

"I have something to show you," he says as Sirius' face changes from relief to confusion when he notices Remus is leading him upstairs.

Each step is a warning in the back of Remus' brain, wrapped in flush red carpet, ignored as he keeps on walking with resolution on his gaze. Sirius trails after him sheepishly, and he can hear him swallow as they go past the moving photographs on the wall, the waving hands and big smiles Remus has just lost forever. Sirius' skin feels warm beneath his fingers, and he puts the other hand against the wall, trying to feel the different textures, fingertips caressing the wallpaper in which he had painted on as a child.

Remus opens the door to his room without any kind of hesitance in his movements, accuracy born of shock and anger and grief and every unshed tear. "So what was it you wanted to sho-" Remus drinks Sirius' words from his lips as he kisses him, shoving him against the just-closed door. There's warmth in there, and he nips at it hungrily, eyes shut too tightly, heart racing too fast.

Sirius makes a startled noise in the back of his throat before melting into the kiss, pulling Remus close by his hair, sinking blunt nails into his neck. Blood becomes alive and feverish, lips become bruised and cut; clothes become ragged and tugged at. Remus isn't thinking clearly, isn't thinking _at all _as he gets his cold hands underneath Sirius' shirt, fumbling for zippers and aching for skin, crazed and out of control.

There's a gasp, a shaky exhalation against his lips, and then grey eyes staring right into his own.

"Is this another of your so-called mistakes?" slips from Sirius' lips without the scorn Remus knows he must have wanted it to have, and Remus shrugs, chest pressed together to Sirius'.

"It's not like I have anything else left." The bitterness in his voice surprises even himself, but he ignores it in favor to lean in for another kiss, mouth already open.

Sirius shoves him, and he stumbles back with eyes wide open. The wrath in Sirius' face makes his eyes bright, and Remus doesn't quite know what to do, what to feel, what to want. "You've still got your mother, you ungrateful bastard. You've still got us," Sirius walks a step forward as he speaks, panting on Remus' face. His mouth sets in a thin line as he adds, "You've still got _me_, so stop acting like this is your bloody fault and start actually doing _something_ about it." Sirius' finger pokes him in the chest in tune with his words, and by the last of them Remus trips with the bed he hasn't slept in since summer, falling into the checkered duvet with his eyes still wide open and his mind in a mess.

(Shame and confusion floating in his brain, just wishing he would _explode_).

Sirius is still breathing hard, standing in the dim-lighted room with his shirt wriggled and his pants undone, looking as if he can't decide whether he wants to punch Remus in the face or hug him close. Neither of the urges wins, and he opens the door with slightly shaky fingers, looking back over his shoulder. "Talk to me when you finally get it inside your thick skull, and when you no longer want to use me as your fucking toy."

Then he's gone, and Remus is left alone in the dusty room, surrounded by his childhood memories, hands over his face and wanting desperately for his father to come up and comfort him as he did after a Full Moon.

He doesn't go back downstairs, but he's fairly sure he's not missed.


	6. Memento

Ploty, ploty, here we go! Angsty chapter, though not as dark as it'll eventually get (I so can't wait for that...) Hope you like it, and reviews are better than chocolate. :)

**Memento**

**By: Nekare**

_Beneath a night no longer May,  
Where only cold stars shine,  
One glimmering ocean spreads away  
This haunted life of mine;  
And, shattered on the frozen shore,  
My harp can never wake,--  
When will this night of death be o'er?  
When will the morning break?_

_- William Winter, "The Night Watch"_

Night falls, and the candles beneath his father's portrait become a ghostly path of light that shines in the recently-fallen snow outside the windows.

The four boys sleep in Remus' room together, James and Peter making silly jokes as they feel the tight silence between him and Sirius, who is huddled against the door (a heated memory to remember, a thorn built out of guilt buried in his skin) with his back to the rest of them.

Remus doesn't laugh, doesn't speak; and James and Peter share concerned looks over his shoulders, through the thick darkness, and he feels somewhat guilty of making them part of his grief, but for once he decides to be selfish and remain silent.

(He has enough in his mind already, voices screaming and clawing at his brain, mixed signals and advices and a thousand future scenarios for every single thing he chooses).

The night in which Snape almost died (but didn't; he still breathes, and so does Remus; and yet his father doesn't.) replays again and again in his dreams, and amidst the mist of dream, made of sand in his eyelids, he can recognize the tiniest of resolution, and he suddenly knows he has already forgiven Sirius, although he just doesn't know when.

Remus wakes up, and the reality is worse than his nightmares.

---

Peter praises Mrs. Lupin's breakfast the nex morning, and she smiles tiredly, dark bags under her eyes, feeding them as if that's the only thing that makes any sense right now.

(Remus doesn't know it, but that's exactly how she feels).

Remus finds the food too tasty, too colorful, and he wonders why did he ever thought the little details fade to gray when one's world collapses. He eats, nevertheless, and a bit of his sweet thoot for life returns with the meal. He kisses his mother on the cheek when he's done, and the gratefulness in her eyes tastes bittersweet on his tongue.

The term starts that day, and the three boys take turns to hug Mrs. Lupin before going to the backyard to create another of their illicit Portkeys. Remus has been allowed to stay until tomorrow, and he watches the old dog toy (the same one Sirius chewed two years ago) come alive and brimming with magic, the little wind vortex that always come with the creation of a Portkey messing his hair. He doesn't want to let them go, he wants to hug them close and tell each of them all the things he's kept quiet all his life, because there's a war just waiting to happen out there, and nothing can prove they'll still be alive in some days time.

i _Thank you_. /i that's what he wants to say the most. I Thank you for accepting me as I am, thank you for laughing with me and not at me, for having broken the law just to help me. Thank you, and I love you all so very much. /i

That's what he wants to say, but instead he lets Peter and James hug him and put chocolates in his coat pockets, patting his back like mates do, telling him what kind of marvelous pranks they can all do when he gets back to Hogwarts, a feeble attempt to cheer him up.

Then Sirius steps ahead to say goodbye, and Remus' stomach deserts him.

Sirius doesn't speak, doesn't smile, doesn't wave. Instead, he pulls him close with a hand curled around Remus' coat collar. He kisses him on the lips, softly, almost chastely, and Remus' world i stops /i . It only lasts a second, and Remus hasn't quite breathed when Sirius turns around, eyes still closed and lips bright red in sharp contrast with his pale skin.

James looks mildly amused, and Peter's eyebrows are quite raised, but time is ticking (ticking life away), and there's no time for explanations as the three boys held onto the chewed toy while waving and wishing him well.

Another gust of wind, and Remus is alone with his questions once again.

---

Both Remus and his mother search through his dad's stuff that day, caressing twenty-year-old memories and pieces of a man's soul.

Remus stills at a photograph, glimmering ocean up and down in dreamy waves until the horizon and her mother smiling as her hat is flown away with the wind time and time again. He's heard the story a thousand times, the trip to southern France they took when they find out she was pregnant with him. Her mother is smiling in that radiant way that died in a full night when he was six.

"I want to know how it happened," he says with his eyes still fixed on the photograph, and he can feel more than see the sharp intake of breath his mother takes on the bed. She surrounded by his dad's life too, old ties and the lame love letters he had used to woo his wife.

"I knew you would," says his mother with a sigh, and turns to look at him, sitting on the floor. Remus looks up to her, not knowind whether he actually wants to know. Wanting, and having, are very different things, though. "I was in Marjorie's house, that's how I-" her voice breaks for a moment, and she swallows before continuing. "escaped. Professor Dumbledore says the Death Eaters entered through the kitchen. Your dad had been watching the telly, almost asleep when I left him – he was only supposed to go back to work on the third – and well."

Remus climbs into the bed, taking her hand into his. She nods, eating back the tears, and she keeps on talking. "I don't know exaclty what happened. Or just i who /i sent them to us. The Order isn't very strong yet, and it wasn't like we were such important members-"

"Wait, what order?" Remus asks confused, and wondering if there was a side of his parents he hasn't known about.

His mother looks reclutant to tell him, but she bites her lip, and Remus knows he's won. "The Order of the Phoenix. It's just getting started, we're trying to fight against Voldemort. We haven't been succesful so far, but-"

Once again, Remus interrupts her. "What? Mom, Dad was a Muggle, how could you allow him to mix in this?" his tone sounds far more with more reproach that he intends too, and his mother winces a bit.

"His son is a werewolf, Remus, how do you think he cannot be involved?" her voice is tense, but the edge goes away almost immediately. "He was helping from the inside of the Muggle society, covering up things as much as he could with burocreacy and law matters. It- it wasn't supposed to end this way."

Remus hugs her, and the last of her strenght goes away. "Everything was supposed to be all right, everything was supposed to be all right…" she repeats amidst sobs, a prayer, a mantra, the search of an absolution. Remus clings to her, sobing himself.

They hug each other, crying and hurting and in i pain /i ,while the mementos of Remus' father surrounds them.

When they finally let go of each other, the sky is dark, and a thin layer of dust has covered the photos.

Remus finds it quite propheticall.


	7. Red Carnival

Wee, seventh chapter! We see the first glimpse of Lily in here. God, but I love that girl, she's a breathe of fresh air (and logic) amidst the boy-stupidity. Posted now in ocasion of the 1000 hits. :)

Feedback will be loved!

**Red Carnival**

**By: Nekare**

Remus dreams about the time his father took him to a Muggle fair, pinks and greens and other thousand colors moving with the wind in the form of tiny flags, bearded ladies and men with gills, floating in a tank of blue water and white bubbles.

Someone had stolen their ticket to see the elephants, and Remus' new born powers had levitated every single ticket from unsuspecting people's back pockets, to his own amazement, and Remus' Muggle father hadn't knows whether he should be proud of if he should scold the weeping child.

_There's cotton candy on his tongue, sweet and thick, sticky five-year-old fingers clutching it tightly, as he sits on his dad's shoulders with wide-eyes and amazement on his face. A man breathes fire, and the flames look beautiful for a moment, bright orange and flickering, dancing with the sky as background. _

_Then the flames are licking at his skin, and little Remus wails as his father's face blurs and melts, and everything _burns.

Remus awakes with a gasp, cold sweat on his brow. He lays on his stuffy bed, panting, rage eating him inside out.

---

Remus is the only one of the four boys that has already passed his Apparition exam (not that that stops them), and on the morning of January 5th, he says goodbye to his mother and tells her quite cryptically that if something were to happen to him she should look in the third drawer in Remus' closet, underneath the purple sweater Aunt Margarite once sent and he never wore.

(There's a letter in there, sealed with tears, that has every single feeling towards the world he hasn't dared said in his own shaky handwriting. A necessity in this war to come).

The trees behind his house are bare, dressed by the thick fog that clings to their branches, a silent shroud that tricks the limit of reality. The trees are grieving too, waiting for spring and the birth of life, tiny blossoming green spots on dark wood.

Remus' Gryffindor scarf becomes the only spot of color amidst the lonely-looking trees, and he walks farther and farther, getting lost on purpose with the excuse of being away from Muggles to Apparate. He searches his pockets for breadcrumbs, but he finds none, so he tosses rocks he won't follow instead.

He kills time. He hopes time would kill him.

A sigh goes out of his lips as the day's end approaches, tiny cloud of used air, carbonate dioxide that will reincarnate to become oxygen once again. He sighs again, hands on his pockets, and readies himself.

There's a pull on his stomach, and the world spins and mutates before his eyes. As soon as it begins, there's ground under his feet, and he's standing before the Hogwarts' snow-covered gates.

He leaves half of his grief behind.

---

Dinner has just ended, and Hogwarts is brimming with contented looking students, wandering around before curfew. Remus had stalled that much only so he wouldn't need to see people, but it appears his calculations failed. He walks through the hallways feeling self-conscious in his Muggle jeans and dark blue shirt, feeling as if he could be spotted amidst a sea of black robes from a mile away.

The Fat Lady smiles at him sweetly from her frame, and Remus has to frown as she had never done that before, not since she had first seen what kind of company he liked to keep. He enters Gryffindor Tower, and every single movement on the room stops. Remus freezes right next to the portrait hole, as dozens of eyes are fixed on him.

"Um, hullo?" he asks anxiously to the crowd, and people start sharing _looks_ the kind he's always dreaded since he was young and the bite scar rested on his shoulder. Lily comes closer to him, as vibrant-looking as always, hair unbound and freckles on her nose.

"Hello, Remus. I- all of us," she says with a hand gesture, signaling the entire Common Room. There's warmth in her eyes, but her tone is grave. "We are all very sorry for your loss, and if there's _anything_ we could do for you, just-"

"Moony!" Comes James' shout from afar, and before he knows it, he's being tackled by lord knows how many pounds of excited teenager. "There you are, mate. Come, come, we've got pranks to plan!" He says cheerily, sparing a radiant grin to the very crossed looking Lily.

"Honestly," she says with her hands on her hips, "Remus is going through some very difficult times, and it wouldn't _kill _you trying to be more sensitive, you prick. After all, where were you when this happened?"

_With me as he always has_ Remus wants to say, but he knows that for the rest of the school, the other Marauders had been locked up in their dormitory at the same time they had been comforting him in their different ways. James drags him away before he can get any word out, and he's eternally grateful for that. He just wouldn't be able to handle the sympathy right now, the shy little smiles and uncertainty of what to say.

James' hyper act is dropped as soon as Lily is out of sight, and then the silence is companionable but devoid of any real cheer. They go to their usual corner by the largest window, where Peter and Sirius are playing chess (there's a pang in Remus' stomach, a flutter of treacherous butterflies that should have died months ago, frozen wings with the first frost) . Peter says hello as Remus sits in his favorite armchair, with a sigh, but Sirius doesn't acknowledge his presence.

"I've got something to tell you," says Remus, after a few moments of getting used to the more breathable air in the Tower. He uses his business tone, and even Sirius moves forward a bit, four heads close together. Remus tells them everything, about his dad's murder, about the Order of the Phoenix, about the resistance to the madman that has claimed will conquer the world. Their eyes are serious, their questions precise.

This can mean war, and they know it's up to them to bring it to and end.

---

Remus corners Sirius that night, just after he comes out of the shower, and he tries very hard not to stare at the droplets of water running along Sirius' body as rain against the windows. Remus mouths incoherently for some moments, and Sirius looks away with his arms crossed against his chest, his pyjama bottoms sliding lower as they always tend to do.

"I've been thinking about what you said," he says finally, and Sirius' practiced bored look settles on him. Too bad he can see right through it.

"And?"

"And you were right, I wasn't thinking straight, and I guess I lost focus on, um, things." Remus fidgets, wanting this to be over, wanting this to last forever. "And I want you to know I, well. I _know_ you're all there for me. You've always been, and you don't know how grateful I am for that."

Sirius' façade falls, and then he's only another teenager trying desperately to _live _and not fuck it up. "Don't you ever doubt it again, you hear me?" scorn and anger take residence in his voice, and Remus knows the doubt is what had hurt him the most.

"No. I won't. And, well, I also wanted to apologize, I-I practically took advantage of you, and-"

"_ Stop._" Sirius interrupts, stepping closer, and the proximity alone quiets Remus more efficiently than his imperious tone. Sirius swallows, hard, but keeps looking him in the eye as he speaks. "Look, if anyone here is supposed to apologize, it should be me. I know it, you know it, fuck, the world knows it. So just, don't."

"I don't think of you as a toy. I really don't. You've _got _to believe me in this." Remus says hurriedly, ignoring Sirius' statement.

Sirius sighs deeply, and the used air tickles Remus' lips. "I know. Why- why don't we call it even?" There's hope in his face, and his right hand buries in the hair at his nape.

There's a moment, staring into each others eyes, and three months of missing Sirius continuously and hating himself for it pass in front of Remus' eyes.

(Loneliness in a crowded room, tense breathing at night, dreams filled with heated hands).

"All right." Sirius closes his eyes at Remus' words, the longest sigh coming out of his lips. There's a promise of future trust implied somewhere in their words, and it echoes in the stone walls.

They don't touch. There are too many questions flying inside Remus' head, too much pain, to much _everything._

They don't touch in any kind of way that night, but they know they both want to.


	8. Life After Death

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone that has left a review, as they are what pretty much keep me going. Love you all!

That being said, I got a flame the other day. And I laughed until I cried XD Now I get the appeal of flames, actually, because it was pointless, it was fun and I was smirking for the entire day. So:

Dear Flamer: You amuse me. Really, you do. And how do you pronounce EWGH anyway?

**Life After Death**

**By: Nekare**

_A soft breeze with the slippery concrete black and full of muddy slush, contrasting with the hoarfrost, clean and hung on a tunnel of silent shivering trees (the ones you said you'd like to be), and the birds that screamed at the sun now buried deep down below the ground, beneath the snow, I press my shoulder to this wall between us._

_- The Weakerthans, "__Without Mythologies_

The frozen, lifeless body of a butterfly appears on the windowsill the next morning, ice frosting smearing the bright blue tips, and as Remus caresses the carcass with a fingertip he can't help but think he should stop wishing at all.

He sends it flying to the breeze, one last moment of freedom and it becomes a spot of color in the black and white world beneath the Tower, a graveyard made of snow and slush where the secret thoughts of hundreds of teenagers go to die. The trees at the edge of Remus' sight are moving with the wind, shivering with the cold the threat of war has brought.

Remus shivers too, out of what he doesn't know, and then it's time to face the day.

---

Breakfast is a strange affair.

People continue to give him pity-laden looks, and girls take turn to spread butter in his toast, as if that might help anything. Remus is tense during the whole thing, feeling uncomfortable while with everyone's attention, the fussing and extreme caring he's only known and hated from his multiple elderly aunts. He smiles, feebly, and the girls around him sigh and pass him the marmalade.

Sirius is sitting with him, too close and too real, everything he's wished for in months and everything he's dreaded at the same time.

They don't talk much, although that's mainly becouse of the giggly, girly chattering voices that drown his voice. "You look too thin," Lily says as she takes the place next to him, moving the previous girl in there aside.

"Uh," says Remus quite inteligently, wondering if he should be offended by that. He's _always _too thin, it's not something he has a say in.

"You should have more glucose, here, some fruit will help to your complexion, and I've heard bananas have lots of calcium, and-"

"Oh, bananas are _so _interestingly shaped, aren't they?" says Sirius at his right, nonchalantly as usual, and Remus chokes a little.

He swats him in the thigh, and Sirius chuckles. "I'm okay, Lily, really," he lies between his teeth, with the practiced ease of someone who has been hiding his true self for eleven years.

Her mouth finally closes, and then she looks wise beyond her years. "I don't believe you. But I trust in you, so I know you will be. Okay, I mean." She reaches for his hand and squeezes it just for a second, before smiling at him sweetly and standing up to go to classes. The four boys stare at her in wonder, red hair looking bright and alive in contrast with her black robe. _She will be a fine mother someday,_ Remus suddenly thinks, and he just hopes that the far away dreams of families and promising jobs of everyone around won't be sent to an early death because of this war.

The death of Remus' father had stopped his world, a sudden, painful jerk that just froze time for him. Now, he's surprised to find life does goes on after all, and an ending is nothing but a beginning.

"I knew there was a reason I was madly in love with her," says James, and everyone else in the table laughs.

---

Sirius turns Milly Davidson into a flamingo, and both he and Remus are thrown out of the class by a very irate Professor McGonagall.

"It's not fair," says Remus as he kicks a stone with his boot-covered toes. "I didn't even do anything." They're by the lake, throwing rocks at the frozen parts, seeing who can break the ice first, both literally and figuratively.

"Guilt by association, Remus, you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." The next rock he throws is particularly impressive, but Remus just shakes his head, cold getting into his ears and making them buzz. His cheeks are bright red, from the cold and the blood that just refuses to stay in his brain and think about _consequences_.

"Aren't I always," he says sadly, and Sirius finally turns to look at him, worry in his eyes, scarlet-lipped and pure temptation to Remus' swirling mind.

He wants to kiss Sirius. He wants to stay put and look at the peaceful water. He wants to tickle Sirius until he screams. He wants to get his hands into his pockets and breathe forever in the bittersweet longing. He wants to do _something_, he wants to do _nothing _.

They stare at each other, and Sirius makes the decision for him.

His breath goes out in a puff as Sirius tackles him to the ground, snow flying as if it was colorless confetti. They scuffle, and as the roll in the snow Remus is reminded of his fight with James in the first day of the year (an eternity ago, when the world made sense), and notices the way the fights feel nothing alike.

(There's lingering touches, cold hands under clothes that bring gasps and sighs, closeness scented with foreplay).

Sirius gets a handful of snow inside Remus' mouth, and he doesn't get anytime to complain before Sirius leans down for a kiss. Every single nerve in Remus' body comes to life, and the coldness in his mouth, numbing and sweet, mingles with the heat of Sirius', corrupting and salty; addictive.

There's a rustle of cloth, and Sirius is suddenly partly on top of him, not breaking the kiss, breathing for him, and Remus wonders if he just may die right now.

He doesn't, though, and when they part and Sirius bites his lip and the exquisite pain tears his soul apart he just breathes out, breaths in; staring into his eyes. Sirius rests his chin on Remus' chest, and they just let the silence speak for them.

"We _are_ going through with this, aren't we?" Sirius says after a while, and the movement reverberates along Remus' body. "The Order, I mean."

"Well, I know _I _am, Pads," The nickname slips off his lips like alcohol, easy and well-known and definitely well-missed. "We just wouldn't last with open war, we're not trained for it, and something must be done. For my dad. But I don't really want you to get involved."

Sirius gives him anther kiss, one he knows they won't talk about, since emotions are just a touchy topic, and he makes sure Remus' gaze is on him instead of the lonely birds standing on the branches – the ones that didn't fly south, before he speaks.

"We already are, Moony, just because _you _are." Remus doesn't think he could bear this weight on his shoulders, but there's something steely in Sirius' tone that manages to convince him. "We're together in this."

---

Sirius disappears that night, and when he finally enters the dorm, the third quarter moon shines on his hair. Remus doesn't ask where he's been, but then again, he's not sure he wants to know.


	9. Beehive

I hadn't realized I hadn't updated for so long! Sorry, all of you amazing readers. :)

Another transition chapter, as the beginning of the end will start next chapter. Dumbledore was odd to write, but quite interesting, and foreshadowing is just the coolest thing ever XD (as you'll see...)

**Beehive**

**By: Nekare**

_Inklings of the storm,  
of the heavy trembling,  
are surely what drive  
us together. _

Inklings of loneliness,  
of a creeping frost,  
an imminent fall,  
a futile cry

-- Tarjei Versaas, "Outside the Wind Whispers"

Snow falls that night, pure white and full of the dreams Remus had to forsake after the first moon he experienced the bloodlust. The world awakes with a layer of beginnings, and it is only irony that makes the school know that morning about the murder of Rachel Thompson's aunt and uncle.

The enchanted ceiling makes the sky look odd, snow falling in thick snowflakes that just don't fall into the awaiting tongues of hundreds of students. Everyone seems to be expecting Remus to comfort the Hufflepuff girl after she runs out of the Great Hall, as if shared grief would make them understand each other. He finds her huddled against one of the suit of armor, sniffling quietly with her eyes unfocused. He sits on the floor next to her, and says nothing at all.

Years later, she would tell him it was the best comfort she got out of anyone.

---

The four boys find themselves sitting in front of Dumbledore's desk at Transfiguration's period, and for the first time in their history, they're not there to get a punishment.

They'd passed the entire morning sending each other notes about this, and after lunch they had all agreed it was their best plan. "Let me know if I understand you, boys." says Dumbledore, blue eyes sparkling with something akin to amusement and pride. "You want to join the Order?"

"That's right, Professor." says Remus, the chosen speaker of the day. They have a code, engraved in their memories since Third Year, and every time one of them wants something especial to be said, they nudge him in coded secret.

"And why exactly is that, if I may ask?" says Dumbledore somewhat cheerily, and Remus feels self-conscious, as if he his words just a show to the elderly man, an interesting trick by some rather well-trained animal.

A nudge by Peter, and he knows exactly what to say. "We reckon something must be done about the incoming war. I know you need all the help as possible, and we just can't sit in here while people are dying out there. Something must be done," He repeats, slightly choked, but he continues steadily with his own words. "I'd be ready to step into my father's position, but I've no contact with Muggles other than my family." His words make it final, and Remus finally acknowledges his dad's death out loud. He feels empty, somehow, bare without his constant advice in letters.

The amusement dies in Dumbledore's eyes, and as he sighs he looks older than ever. "Those are very noble feelings, Mr. Lupin, of all of you." Something in Remus clenches with the expectance, and then it just evaporates with Dumbledore's next words. "But, I cannot accept you in the Order."

"What?" say Sirius and James together, and Peter gasps quite indignantly. Remus just sits there, eyes wide and illusions crushed.

"I am afraid you are too young, and yes I know you're all of age now. Regardless, none of you could enter the Order i at least /i until you're out of school." James sputters protests, but a hand gesture quiets him.

"Live, for now. Then, you can learn how to fight." his tone becomes somber as he adds, "and how to die."

---

"Can you _believe_ it?" asks James for the sixteenth time already, and Peter just rolls his eyes.

Remus can't, really, but he's said it the first time and he won't repeat himself. Sirius is brooding silently on his right, and Remus can't help thinking there's something wrong with him, something akin to dread bleeding into his face, mingling with the anger and fear everyone has felt deep in their skins since the threat of Voldemort had risen.

(Innocence has died, he sometimes thinks, as people around him laugh too hard at jokes that aren't even funny, trying to get back a piece of forgotten childhood).

"He just can't say what we can and can't do! He's not our father or anything-" James stops at mid-rant, looking warily in Remus' direction, but a muttered "thanks Merlin for that," from Peter dissipates his awkwardness.

They walk through the hallways without a definite purpose, and Remus' voice echoes in the stone when he finally speaks, torch light bringing his coloring alive. "I guess we must take matters into our own hands, then."

The other three stop walking with the surprise, and they have to catch up with Remus' determinate strides, worn boots leading them into the library. The others share dubious looks, but eventually shrug and follow.

"We taught him well, Padfoot, we should be proud."

---

The snow keeps falling through the day, a white curtain over dark sky, making the outside world seem blurry and repetitive, although Remus knows no snowflake is the same to another (the same as people, and spells, and feelings). He puts his fingers against one of the tall windows in the library, and the too thin to be noticed layer of ice covering the glass melts under his warmth.

He wants to become snow too, soothing and white, scattered to the winds and tied down to nowhere. Then he thinks about Wormtail buried in a pile of socks, of Prongs shoveling snow with his antlers for the lack of anything better to do, Padfoot chasing cats in Hogsmeade.

And then, then he decides his life isn't as bad after all.

---

There's little in the Restricted Section they haven't experienced with already, but they hide some books in their packs anyway, to be revised when Madam Pince isn't around to yell at them. Remus had told them to search for both attack and defense spells, and for once, they listen to him.

Remus won't accept Dumbledore's excuse for not letting them in, even when he still isn't able to see himself in the mirror and see an adult in his place. He won't disobey him, though, since every lie he tells the man is a heavy weight on his shoulders, and trust is the only thing that has kept him alive so far.

(Trust in decent survival from distraught parents, trust in a bright future for a scared child, trust in a friend that didn't turn out as tamed as he looked. He doesn't trust Sirius with his heart though.

He knows he'll break it.)

They're lacking in practical matters, and Remus makes a mental note that if he ever were to teach DADA, as strange at that sounds, he would make it as practical as possible. Years of running wild in a forest have given them a good grasp in reflexes and survival instincts, though, and they speak of what-if's and dreadful scenarios, trying to gain a tactician's mind. They Charm their quills to act as them, and Peter invariably ends up moving the feathery Death Eaters. Sirius' quill dies when he doesn't see an attack coming from a different angle, and he sulks in the corner of the table, making his eraser dance a gloomy tango.

Two hours, fourteen minutes and three seconds later, Sirius suddenly slides his foot along Remus' calf, and the gasp that comes out of Remus' lips makes him smile with sin carved on his skin. There's something else going on inside his skull, Remus knows, but for once he puts it aside and gets his quill singed as Sirius strokes and fireworks light behind his eyelids.

The storm rages outside, and the inklings of something too warm to be lust move in time with Remus' breathing and Sirius' rhythm.

---

"All right, out with it." says James just before going to bed. Everyone stares at him, and everyone knows what he's saying at once.

"What do you mean?" Sirius says, trying to feign innocence, avoiding his eyes in that way that means he's lying. Remus knows that only happens with them, that whenever he lies to someone else he does it with his eyes locked into the other's and with such certainty not even him can sometimes tell between his lies and his truths.

"There's been something eating at you all day. Spill it."

Sirius averts their eyes, and they suddenly know it's something serious. Déjà vu makes Remus' blood run cold, the night of The Prank re-playing in his mind. Sirius looks at him, shoulders hunched and head lowered, and his words make Remus' world _stop_ once again.

"I think I know who killed your father."


	10. Bury me in Snow

Now _this_ is where things start getting good XD I loveddoing this, and Regulus was such an utter pleasure to write. I'm kinda sorry for you lovely people with all of the nasty cliffhangers, but if it's any consolation I'll try and update faster. Thank you to all my nice reviewers, by the way, that just makes my day.

That day's prompt was **Soup**, if I can remember correctly.

**Bury Me In Snow**

**By: Nekare**

Remus' breath leaves him without saying goodbye, an invisible puff of air that he feels should be white, should be cold, should be powdered snow made out of oxygen.

Should be anything but the dread on the base of his stomach. Some people say the possibility of revenge tastes heavenly, exquisitely sweet with just a hint of strawberry icing.

They're wrong. It tastes bitter.

---

_Sirius finds Regulus playing chess by himself under the portrait of a Greek man in a toga, eyes so alike to his own fixed on the checkered game, the tip of his wand the only light along with the feeble moonlight. Sirius takes a deep breath, reminding himself why exactly is he doing this in the first place (an eternity of full moons nipping at the wolf's fur, a thousand smiles from Remus' lips he wants to keep in his memory forever), before lifting his chin and walking confidently towards him._

_In the back of his mind, he can't help but damn this world in which he needs an excuse to talk to his brother. Things used to be simple, siblings together as their mother shrieked in one of her madness attack, shadows and lights slithering in her vision and heavy fiery footsteps inside her ears._

_Regulus turns his head when he hears the noise Sirius is deliberately making, but he doesn't say anything, he just waits for Sirius to make the first movement, ready to devour his pawns and kill his king at the second move. This is their parent's child, and Sirius feels a pang of regret for not having taken him out of Grimmauld Place. There would have been some hope for the small child that always stole his toys, then._

_"Hello, Reg." he keeps using the nickname, waiting for the frown in Regulus' face as he scolds him for treating him as a child._

_There's none, though, and Regulus looks back into the board. He eats the white tower with his horse, and Sirius shivers. "Hello, Sirius."_

_There's no pleasantries exchanged. "So, did you get it then?" Sirius asks, trying not to sound as anxious as he feels, as the letter he had Owled Regulus just as he had got to Hogwarts after the funeral, the curves in his letters speaking of anger and desperation and confusion. No answer had come, but Regulus' smile at lunches filled with people in between them had spoken on itself._

_Information. That's all he needs, all his brother can ever do for him._

_"I was thinking, brother, do you remember that wonderful soup Kreacher used to make? I just miss it so." Sirius says nothing (but remembers, the stiff dinners with the family, the silverware he had hoped would burn him just so he would have a way out). Regulus looks up at him, smirking with an expression so reminiscent of Bellatrix's that Sirius wants to punch it out of his face. "I may. Or not. Who am I to judge when I'm not entirely aware of the reasons for my knowledge?"_

_Sirius grits his teeth, counting to ten in his head, trying to calm his temper. He reaches twenty-two, and he speaks again. "Look, you asshole, I've no time for your shit." Regulus doesn't look impressed. Instead he looks vaguely amused, an eyebrow raised in that gesture that annoys Peter so much when Sirius does it._

_"Well I can hardly tell you if I don't know the reasons why, now can I?" Regulus stands up, and this time, the fact that Sirius is still a couple of inches taller doesn't give him any kind of comfort. This is a Slytherin negotiation, filled to the brim with loopholes and double intentions._

_And still, Sirius doesn't hesitate as he says "I'll owe you a favor." That gains Regulus' attention, the words that for Purebloods sign a lifetime contract in blood with the Devil as witness. He smiles, predatory, so Black it feels like a blow in the gut to Sirius. "Do you, or do you not have the name?" Sirius says with his eyes almost closed, not bearing to see the future that has been written for his little brother._

_Years later, Sirius would never forget when Regulus came to ask that last favor, grime on his face, tears on his eyes and a poisonous smell of Dark Magic all over him. Sirius closed the door on his face._

_Regulus died the next day._

_The candles have already gone out, and curfew has started some hours ago, but Regulus sits back with his chessman and his maddening grin. Only one word comes out of his lips._

_"Rosier."_

---

The world moves again.

Remus doesn't speak, doesn't reason at all before he puts his shoes back on and runs down to the common room. He can hear yells behind him, but he can't hear the confused voices of his friends as they run after him. He can feel Lily's side as he crashes with her in the Common Room, but he can't hear her yell of "What do you think you're doing? It's curfew already!" as he climbs through the hole, through the portrait, through the empty hallways.

He can count four pair of footsteps after him, and he is vaguely confused over this until he hears Lily's ragged breathing behind. She asks for them to stop, and the three ignore her, while Remus' brain doesn't even acknowledge it. Remus runs as fast as he can, mindless but with one name running across his skull, down through stairs, moving and changing; through abandoned classrooms with layers of years and dust over their melancholic ache for students, through the marble steps (hopping over one, just at the top) and across the wooden doors, slightly ajar.

The storm is still raging outside, thick snowflakes darkening his vision in a lighted way, opposites in mere words. The snow reaches his knees when Hogwarts ends, and then the ground is white and the sky is dark and the world has turned itself upside down.

Remus wades through the coldness, legs getting damp in seconds and lips trembling out of the temperature, out of sorrow, out of anger. His wand is being clasped tightly in his hand, a part of himself he couldn't get rid of even if he tried. He runs, jumping slightly in every step as to avoid the snow. A tingle of magic spreads around his back, but he doesn't have time to think of just what exactly it is before Sirius tackles him from behind, a crude imitation of an earlier, warmer, fight.

"Get off!" Remus bellows over the deafening sound of the storm, snow coating his entire body as they roll with their momentum and the gentle slope. Lily shrieks somewhere behind them, and Remus punches Sirius in the jaw. Sirius returns the blow, and Remus' left eye stings for a moment until adrenaline kicks back in.

"I won't!" yells Sirius, as they struggle and try to hit as much skin as they can. "You've gone mad!"

"Let me go," says Remus as his head sinks into soft snow, resurging with ice on his eyelashes, cold on his throat he can't seem to swallow.

"I won't let you do this, Remus. I will not let you lose your life over a stupid wish of revenge!"

Remus stills, for a moment, and amidst the veil of his blinding rage he can see Peter helping Lily through the Hogwarts' gates, red-faced and looking somewhat scared. James follows, his wand lifted and a thin thread of light connecting it to himself.

He turns to Sirius, panting on top of him, and kisses him softly. "Goodbye," he says, and kicks Sirius aside.

"No!" he can hear Peter say, and then they're all running towards him, even Lily who doesn't – shouldn't – know anything about this.

He Apparates, muttering the name Rosier over and over to himself, wanting, magic searching for the recipient; world turning, swelling and bubbling before his eyes, whiteness trapped in his gaze (with an drowned voice in the back of his voice telling him sardonically he forgot about the three Ds). His body breaks into a thousand pieces, he is built again from scratch, he shifts, morphs; and then suddenly, he appears someplace else.

He is dimly aware of dark walls covered in rotten orange oxide, voices by his ear, and then the world goes black.


	11. Travel in the Dark

I'm really, really sorry aboutthe lateness of this. :hides: I promise to post the next chapter in the next few days, as for you guys not to be left with such an awful cliff-hanger for ages. Thank you for your reviews, they make my day. :)

This, and the next one, are probably my favorite chapters in the whole thing. They were just so much fun to write!

**Travel in the Dark**

**By: Nekare**

_One kind word can warm three winter months.  
- Japanese Proverb _

Remus returns to consciousness abruptly, as if pulled from the foggiest of dreams, with his mouth open in a gasp. The first thing he sees are his friends, Lily's worried face among them. She doesn't fit with the background, too colorful and lively for the dark environment, for her black uniform, for the company she's been dragged into. She moves slightly and her hair looks as if it's caught fire.

Eyes half-closed, he reaches to touch it, a beacon of light in the suddenly blurry world, and he melts to the dirty floor, boneless and devoid of energy; wishing for his body to disappear so he could slither in delicate curves in the shape of the cursed blood that runs through his veins. Sirius puts a hand under his head, lifting him up a bit, and the other four faces slip out of his vision as they move backwards to give him space.

The ceiling is made of ancient grey stone, moss growing in some parts in a somber imitation of color, water stains spreading across the cracks. Remus' world just can't seem to stop spinning, a reality made out of deliriously bended shapes and confusing faces he knows he recognizes but doesn't want to.

Sirius lips are moving, but no sound is reaching his ears, and as he gets lost in flashes of white teeth that seems to shiny in the oppressive darkness his mind just decides he's not up for the ride.

His head lolls back in Sirius' hands as he slips into unconsciousness once again.

---

"What'd you mean you told him to help him?" comes Lily's voice across an ocean of sluggishness, a soft murmur that echoes slightly with the low ceiling. Remus grimaces a bit, eyes still closed, and considers staying there and become one with the walls – at least that would stop the pain. He aches _everywhere_, as if he had been taken apart by some rather curious toddler and some pieces were still missing.

"Well, I thought that'd help a bit, you know, to have a _long-term_ purpose," says Sirius somewhere on his right, and Remus figures they're talking about him. He lays still, and listens intently.

"Just how would him knowing the name of his father's murderer help _at all_?" snaps Lily, and there's a subtle rustle of cloth that would be James trying to appease the girl with a hug, it Remus knows him at all. He waits for the slap, but it never comes, so he supposes Lily mustn't be paying attention to his stalker in potency. "Agh, you're such _boys_. This is just stupid. One kind word can warm three winter months, you know?"

"What?" ask the three boys, and Remus joins them in his mind.

There's a deep sigh, and then she speaks again. "It's a Japanese saying. Oh, forget it." Another rustle and Remus opens his eyes on instinct, only to find Lily reaching down for him. "You're awake," she says, and the boys turn hastily to look at him.

"What happened?" asks Remus, mouth dry and eyes struggling to adapt to the lack of light. Sirius sits the closest to him, and twines his fingers with Remus' own lightly, a promise turned into touch and a silent apology.

His friends look at each other, wondering just what to say, and Lily rolls her eyes slightly before speaking for the others. "We used _ennervate _in you the first time you woke up, and it seemed to make things worse, so we let you recover by yourself."

"No, I mean, why are you here?" Remus moves his head slightly, inquisitively, and the pain that tears through his skull makes him stop.

"James put a tracking spell on you, just before you and Sirius started, uh, fighting." Lily coughs, and Remus can remember kissing Sirius in front of them, an image covered in heavy fog and deep heartache. So much for discretion, he thinks, and when he remembers where he is the fact that there may not be anything to be discreet for after death makes itself known. "We Apparated right after you. The tracking Charm created a destination, so we didn't go through the same as you. Remus, you _know_ that's dangerous, Apparating without a place in mind, without a clue, even, of just who you wanted to appear next to. It could have _killed _you, Remus."

Everyone in the room swallows, but they all hide it with different levels of ability. "I know." says Remus slowly, adverting their gazes, and he tries to sit up. The three boys help him up immediately, knowing after years just how to treat an injured Moony.

"But that's not important now," says Peter as he holds Remus' left arm. "We need to focus on getting out of here."

"Where is 'here', by the way?" Remus says between a wince and a grimace. Now that he's sitting he can see they're in the middle of some kind of hallway, darkness spreading just as the last threads of light from James' wand disappear. The air is cold and somewhat stale, as if no living creature had walked along the stone-made passage in ages.

"I think it's some kind of dungeon, small castles and old manors usually have this kind of construction." They all look around as Lily speaks, taking in every detail, saving them in their memories. "We can't Apparate out, there's some kind of deflecting spell." she states, and Remus' face goes pale. He hadn't meant to drag all of them into this; revenge is something meant to only be tasted alone.

"We've got to find another way out."

---

Two hours tick in their clocks, and the darkness has veiled their eyes so that's the only thing they can see. Every mutter, every footstep, speeds along the passage in sound waves that hurt their ears, that feed their growing paranoia. Everyone's taking turns to help Remus, who can't still move that easily, a pang of pain in every muscle he moves.

The uneasiness growing in their stomachs makes them turn around anxiously, feeling watched, vulnerable under the muffled light of their wands under their robes, fabric glowing in one bright spot and giving just the amount of light necessary to walk. They had decided more than an hour ago that they needn't any attention on themselves.

They had found a human skeleton twenty minutes after they had left their initial point. The bones had looks pearly and inconsistent under the feeble wand light, and all of the tiny circles of magic-powered light had gone off at the same time without a single incantation being muttered. Lily had clung to James without noticing, a silent scream choked on her throat, and the five of them had huddled together against the opposite wall, rapid breathing and racing hearts.

There is no doubt in Remus' head now. Rosier is in the building, and probably, more Death Eaters; and his friends are all trapped here with sociopaths probably walking on marble floors over their heads, _and it is all his fault_. They keep on wandering through the never ending labyrinth of stone and locked doors, crooked stairs leading to black holes of nothingness, cold becoming more pronounced as the night advances.

Remus is especially surprised of Lily, who looks frightened but composed, shivering as lightly as they all are without any complaint, when she should be sitting on a warm armchair by the fire right now, not underground with no discernible way out. Peter steps over something, and the sound of bone breaking fills their ears in a deafening noise. "I- I think it was a rat's," croaks Peter, and the boys tense as Lily relaxes. He pats Peter a bit on the shoulder as he helps him, the other arm wrapped around Sirius' neck in a slightly more impious kind of way.

The air is becoming oppressive, hard to breathe as their lungs fill with too much fear for their guts to bear, the scent of moss permeating their noses. Fifteen minutes more, and then there's light at the end of a passage so narrow only two of them fit walking side by side. The orange burns at their eyes, after hours of their pupils being so dilated hardly any color on the iris was seen, but it looks like warmth in their desperate minds as they follow it blindly.

Sirius is left to drag Remus by himself, and they touch fairly more than necessary, a need of realness and a proof of life beyond this maze churning inside him. The five of them stop abruptly at the end of the tunnel, and watch, eyes-wide, half concealed by the stone, the scene unfurling in front of them.

There's a fire roaring in the center of a circular room with runes written on blood covering every inch of the floor, a dozen black-clad men surrounding it.

Lord Voldemort paces between them.


	12. Speak of the Devil

See? I _can_ keep my promises. :) All right so a bit of a warning for R content in the chapter, nothing sexual, only somewhat disturbing and dark images. My second favorite chapter, and the climax of the story. Hope you enjoy, and reviews will be snuggled.

**Speak of the Devil**

**By: Nekare**

There's a girl bleeding on the floor, purple skin where the whiteness of rigor mortis hasn't arrived yet, dull open eyes staring right at them, piercing their souls like no knife could ever do. Voldemort walks towards her prostrated form, stepping onto the coagulating blood with ease, the ends of his robe tinting deep scarlet. He rolls the girl with his bare foot, leaving another red stain on her skin as the body faces the ceiling instead.

She only looks a few years older than them, and her hair is the exact same color as Remus' mother's sitting on her late husband's chair and looking out of the window with a void expression.

The runes mingle with the blood, sizzling as it reaches the fire. "Is that all?" wonders Voldemort aloud, looking bored, and Lily whimpers with the sobbing sound the boys all wish to make. Thirteen heads (such a wrong number) turn towards them and Lily shakes as she covers her mouth with her long fingers, ashen color on the cheeks. Their eyes open wide, mouths trembling, and Voldemort smiles with death on his lips as he advances to them, bloody fingerprints signaling his pace.

A long finger is extended, and the echo from his voice sounds louder than it really is in their minds as he says, sedated, "kill them."

They run, and Remus takes strength from Lord knows where as they flee for their lives.

---

They cry as they run, hearts still beating out of sheer will and matching their desperate strides. Lily says "I'm sorry" a million times, and Remus repeats it with her as this is his entire fault. The wall sends a message of sound of their passing through, and Peter runs with his wand pointing at the endless black behind them, erasing the tracks they leave in the inch-thick dust on the floor.

The five of them retrace their steps, getting lost on purpose in hopes the masked men will too, running along a thousand of equal-looking hallways, a stone archway after another one, humidity under their fingers as they feel their way whenever they hear footsteps and their lights have to go off, the yellow light showing a last portrait of scared faces and dirty cheeks. Remus tears at his clothes, the scent of death plaguing his senses.

Remus' body can't keep on going for a lot longer, but he keeps on putting one foot ahead of him, wanting life so much it hurts, screaming at himself from wanting oblivion before.

It feels a bit late to realize this, but as the air burns in his lungs he makes a silent oath of never doubting his existence again. He trips a little with a bone, and he seals the oath with tears.

---

The darkness has been covering them like a shroud of black intentions for five minutes since they had turned off their wand-light the last time when a voice comes in front of them, rich with madness and scorn. "Just take a look of the little fishies I caught," The terrified teenagers freeze at mid-step, eyes straining to see the source of the voice. "all warm and ready to be gutted."

Remus' blood runs cold in his veins, the wickedness in the voice turning his bones into such fine ash he doesn't think he could run if he wanted. They back up slowly, trying to keep any kind of noise to themselves, holding their breaths, cold sweat on Remus' neck. There's an invisible wall behind them, and as they turn desperately it looks almost sardonically fun, a bunch of mime-children with their hands pressed against thin air that just doesn't give.

Light fills the emptiness suddenly, and they turn slowly to see the white mask staring at them from a short distance. Peter's teeth begin to chatter, and Remus' hands can't seem to stop shaking, knees still weak from the Apparition. The man suddenly laughs, and it feels wrong to think something as inhuman looking as the shapeless white nothing mask can hide a regular, flesh and bone person inside.

"Why, you're the Lupin boy!" Remus starts at hearing his name, and the man edges closer, dangling his wand, knowing he's in complete control of the situation. "Ah, it is so odd that we find each other like this, boy, when I only met your father personally a few days ago."

Remus vision bleeds to red, and his shaking turns into an anger trembling that tears through his entire body, stomach acids boiling inside him. "Rosier?" he asks with a tight voice, and the man laughs.

"Corpses don't spill names, kid, so your disgusting lycanthrope mind will be put at ease about his poor daddy's death very soon."

The words come out of Rosier's lips, and then there's no movement from Remus' part to warn him as the boy takes strength from his burning anger and pounces on him with all his might, wand in hand. "No!" yell the other ones, trying to stop him too late on his momentum. Remus falls on top of him, dragging him to the ground with his weight, and the white masks falls to reveal a regular looking middle-aged man with mild surprise on his eyes.

Rosier reacts immediately, and it's only his crooked position that keeps the blue jet of light from his wand to hit Remus' heart, and even with that, he doubles up with pain, his internal organs feeling as if they had been mixed up. He punches Rosier in the head and a bit of satisfaction blooms on his stomach as green spreads across the Death Eater's face.

It only takes the others a second before deciding on what to do, and then they all throw themselves on top of Rosier too, fighting with magic and hands and teeth sometimes too. In the back of their heads, there's a voice telling them they just wouldn't make it against a full-trained Dark Wizard, so they fight dirty, security in numbers, five teenagers and an adult rolling in the filthy floors, wishing and hoping for a miracle.

A particularly well aimed hex from Peter makes Rosier stop moving for a second, grimacing with pain, and that's all the time Remus needs to point his wand directly at Rosier's head, as he sits on the man's side, staring at him with unveiled intensity. The other four are sprawled somewhat alike him on top of Rosier, each holding down a piece of Death Eater, his wand having rolled some feet away in the tussle.

"You killed my father," Remus states, each word laced with cold and hate.

"Yes. What are you going to do about is, you dirty scum?" the confession isn't like anything Remus had dreamt about since his father's funeral, and his wand doesn't waver at all.

"_Avada Kedavra_," he says, and immediately regrets it.

One second (eyes opening, from both attacker and victim, warm vibrating with the effort of bringing the magic out of Remus' body). Two seconds (flash of green materializing out of pure will and confused hatred, a breath filled of dread from the man and the boy, and then he can't inhale again). Three seconds (and the curse is over, and the eerie light permeating the filthy passage is turned off as fast as it began).

Remus forces himself to watch, and a whimper from the horrified Death Eater matches his own, a small crater of steaming, broken stone three inches away from his temple. Another three seconds in which no one breathes, and Remus' wand shakes so much he couldn't aim if he wanted.

Sirius pushes him aside quite violently, anger and relief and fear mixed in his actions, and he holds his wand against Rosier's throat, which is bobbing up and down nervously. "The way out. Where is it?" he asks concisely, as Remus covers his face with his hands and leans slouched against the opposite wall, afraid of himself. Rosier's sweating, salty droplets sliding along his face and neck. Lily's wand joins Sirius' at his neck, looking menacing; carrying no hint of the schoolgirl Remus knows her to be.

"Speak," says James coldly, but his hands are warm as he helps Remus up from his semi-crouch, looking him in the eye with none of the judgment he's always feared more than anything. Peter takes Remus' left arm and puts it across his own shoulders, and Remus can't help but wonder just what he did to deserve knowing this too brave, too reckless, too amazing people.

Rosier tries masking his trembling, covering it with sneers, but Sirius wand starts sending burning sparks that leave marks and boils on their wake, and he curls his lip in disdain as he speaks. "Through the first hallway at your right, up a fly of stairs, there should be a trapdoor disguised in the ceiling somewhere." he spits the words, as if every letter coming out of his lips tasted of poison.

"Thank you," says Lily, all mannered and faked innocence, and her face stays like that as she continues. "_stupefy._"

---

They run again, the four of them holding Remus up, who has just lost his last strength. The stairs are missing steps, stone turned into dust at some parts. They can't risk light, so they go up in the dark, their hard breathing the only sound they can hear. The ceiling is quite low when the stairs end, and they run their fingers over it, cutting themselves with sharpened pieces of stone, blood running under their sleeves in ignored rivulets.

"Please, please, please…" Lily is chanting by herself, some of the desperation she wouldn't show early finally coming across. James lights his wand finally, and they look for cracks, for an opening, for _anything_ in the enclosed space, Remus' mind tricking him into thinking the air will run out.

"Fuck it," says Sirius, and without a second thought, he transforms into Padfoot. Lily gasps in surprise, but they don't have any time for explanations, they don't have any time _at all_, so James only lets Padfoot lean against him as he stands on his back legs and sniffs the air.

It only takes a few second, and then the large dog is signaling to a rather inconspicuous part of the ceiling. They run to it, and in no time the trapdoor has opened. They help each others up, silently.

The sun is coming out. The sudden light hurts their eyes, and the way it reflects and shines in the thick snow makes them put a hand over them. A small castle stands somewhere close, the fog and dew of the new day covering it up with a dream-like quality, a cloud of pure innocence hiding the devil himself under it's depths. Padfoot urges them to the close trees, and he looks far too dark against the whiteness, his paws leaving a path covered in light and melted ice, shimmering under the new day's sun. As soon as they reach the trees, Sirius transforms again, and grabs onto Remus for dear life. "Apparate!" he mutters, and the others nod in approval.

The pull at his stomach makes Remus want to puke, but the swirling colors of world changing around him end soon, and then they're outside Hogwarts.

The five of them drag themselves inside the gates, and as soon as they're in the grounds they left themselves fall to the ground, drained with terror, tiredness, hunger, and other thousand emotions running through the brains.

Remus holds onto Sirius's warm torso, and his brain shuts down, sending him into thick sleep.

(He dreams about blood, but he forgets about it as soon as he wakes up).


	13. Speak no Lies

Er, sorry?

Have I mentioned how much I love Lily in here? Have I? 'Cause I do. Very much, actually.

**Speak No Lies**

**By: Nekare**

_It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. _

Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

Light filters through the half-closed curtains of the Hospital Wing when Remus opens his eyes, sepia colors woven into the scene when there had only been harsh contrasts before, pure untarnished white from the snow and unfathomable darkness ahead. His limbs feel heavy, his mind muddled; eyelids flickering open and close to the rhythm of a soundless song, taking snapshots of soft-looking curtains and clear ceiling.

Then a jet of green light erupts in his mind, and his eyes open wide as every memory from that night in the smoldering darkness rushes to his brain. He sits up, heart beating wildly, and soft hands push him back into the pillow, gently, the way his mum would do after nightmares.

He turns his head to see Lily standing up beside him, the bed she must have been sleeping in empty behind her, sheets rumpled and pure white as the outside world, covered in blankets too, snowing and snowing until the world's heartbeat stopped for a second, a halt that would resume once the first flowers bloomed bright color against monochrome whiteness. There's a candle floating beside them, and Lily's hair is as bright as the flame, green eyes flickering with the same warmth.

Another burst of memory, and Remus shies away with eyes wide-open, readying himself for the rejection he's feared since his full moon nights had become slightly more interesting than reading by the fire. Lily frowns, reaching out for him again, and when Remus moves back she sighs and drags a chair next to his bed, sitting with a stern expression and looking as if she had belonged there all along, in the same way the Marauders always look around him.

"Fine, you don't want pity, I understand that." says Lily with a resigned way, and Remus doesn't get why is it that she can read him so very easily. "but I think I deserve an explanation, don't you think?"

Remus opens and closes his mouth like a fish, a somewhat surprised she hasn't run in fear (although he knows her better than that), somewhat hoping she won't run in fear after all, somewhat wishing he could have Sirius by his side to trivialize the entire thing. "Yes." he croaks at last.

"All right. I already have my questions done, since you've been asleep for two days, and I've had time to think, so first things first: are you really a werewolf?"

The logical part of his brain wants to ask about those missing days, those missing minutes that he's lost sleeping from his possible not long life. Then the questions strikes home, and he gulps hard as he closes his eyes. "Yes." he says again, a mutter, a whisper, a silent plea for forgiveness he shouldn't ask for being himself.

Lily takes a deep breath. "Well I guess that makes a lot of things make sense. You disappearing so often, for an instance. The full moon is in two days, are you feeling all right?" There's caring in her voice, _honest _caring, and he wants to melt under it.

"That's- that's all? You ask if I'm all right and we go on with our lives?" Remus just can't seem to hide the surprise in his voice.

Lily sighs again, and sits on his bed, resting her head lightly on his shoulders as he stares without knowing what to say. "Did you expect me to run?" _yes _thinks Remus, but doesn't voice it. "You poor thing. Remus, I like you, you're such a nice boy, and you really don't deserve all of this. I won't desert you, you know?"

"Thanks," Remus says, and prays so he won't cry.

"Sirius, the dog, he's an animagus?"

Remus feels odd shouting his secrets for the world to hear after so many years of secrecy, but Lily almost died because of him, and this is the least he can do for her. "Yes. The three of them are, they- they did it to help me, with my, uh, situation."

"That's what I'd figured," says Lily, ever the smart girl. "I think I've been wrong about the four of you after all. They _do_ care about you, don't they? More than I'll ever know." she sighs. "All of those years thinking the worst of them, and it turns out one's wrong in the assumptions about _everyone_ in the end."

"No one is what they seem,"

"No," she agrees, "but if you cared enough you'd be able to see behind the fake. "I'd like to do that, Remus, see what's behind the four of you, behind…"

"James?" Remus finishes for her, and she blushes a bit.

"You're one to speak. Just what is going on with you and Sirius, anyway?"

He lets his gaze wander across the beds, his three friends asleep in the beds across them, rising and dropping bundles of blankets, and Remus feels a cold stab of guilt at having brought them with him.

"I- I'm not entirely sure, myself. It's been… Strange, to say the least, between us."

"But you want him," she says, sounding wise beyond her years, and Remus can't help but admire her once more.

Remus nodds, and allows himself to speak the words for the very first time. "I do. I do."

There's comfortable silence for a while, and Lily just stays there, head on his shoulder in that sort of uncomplicated contact boys usually can't manage, staring at the other three boys tossing in their sleep, each of them thinking by themselves.

"You should be grateful of them," she says after a while, and Remus doesn't hesitate when he speaks.

"I am. You've no idea how much I am."

---

That night they go back to Gryffindor Tower, but not even the stars reflecting on the snow can keep Remus from thinking of the green curse and the possible future three inches would have made.

Sirius sits with him for a while, and when he kisses him softly Remus feels as if heshould push him away, but he's too tired for that. He kisses back as if to forget, and for a while, it almost works.


	14. Eat Me Raw

Err... I'm really sorry? I really am, It's just that I've been quite, quite busy with college - thus, the lack of updates. I'm on vacations now, though, so this might be wrapped up in a couple of days. Only two chapters to go, dear readers!

**Eat Me Raw**

**By: Nekare**

There's frost crawling up the window in Gryffindor Tower the next morning, overcoming the glass with an intricate spider web of lacy ice and falling drops. Remus breaths over it, and takes pleasure as it melts slowly, rivulets of water that feel like his unshed tears.

(Blood tears, that's what he _really_ wants to shed.)

A stubborn bird that just wouldn't fly south is standing in a distant branch, the soft red of its chest looks drowned out amidst the snow, and at the same time making the eye forget about the presence of white, color the only thing surviving as the light goes through the pupils.

_Opposites_, thinks Remus, _are everything_.

Take life and death, for example.

---

Remus has never hated being in Dumbledore's office as now, with Lily curling a lock of red hair around her index finger as she struggles to look the Headmaster in the eye; Peter shuffling his feet nervously at his left. James tells the story, and his low voice somehow makes that night sound cheap, easy and slightly boring, instead of summoning forth the bone-chilling images of blood on Voldemort's toes, rapid heartbeats in the dark under the stone, shudders climbing up his spine with fear and adrenaline and madness.

(He leaves out, though, Remus' near miss with a curse).

Dumbledore listens, chin supported by his linked hands, moon-shaped glasses sitting at the tip of his nose. Remus listens too, eyes almost closed and with a knot on his stomach wanting to come alive and eat him inside out, slowly, steadily, a masochist kind of torture.

The tale ends, and Dumbledore stands up to pet Fawkes at the side, the phoenix that already knows them so well from so many trips up there to be punished. Silence stretches for a minute, and Sirius starts tapping his fingers against the desk in hopes to stop the silence from being deafening. He fails, and then Dumbledore sits again, an impossible to read expression on his face.

"You do understand you all have detention, don't you?" This isn't what they're expecting, and none of them can help but flinch in confusion. Remus blinks, and after they all look at each other they nod slowly. "Good. Then we can go on to the important matters."

They just stare at him, and Dumbledore seems to take that as a yes. "This information will be of crucial help to the Order, my dear boys, and in their behalf, I say thank you."

"What is the-"

"I believe your companions will inform you of that later, Miss Evans." Dumbledore interrupts Lily managing to pass the sharp gesture for a warm one.

"Oh,"

Dumbledore clears his throat, and speaks again. "I am terribly sad you had to go through this, but I assure you your horrible story won't be in vain. The Order is already tracking the place, and we think we've found a match for the description of the poor girl. Now her relatives will be aware of what happened to her, instead of remaining in anguish over her disappearance." Remus reckons knowing what became of her would be a more horrible thing to know, but he keeps the thought to himself. "And of course, this is classified information and none of it shall leave the room, right?" Dumbledore's order is veiled with suggestion, charged with enough of a little bit of magic that they nod immediately.

Remus is itching to get out, to smell the weak winter sunshine again and bury himself in the snow in hopes that his sorrow will bleed into it, tainting it gray and leaving him whole again. They don't know what to say, so they don't say anything at all, five child-adults gulping and making a point to look elsewhere.

"You must know that I'm incredibly proud of you, and that if you still wish it, there is a place for all of you in the Order once you're out of school."

"No." says Remus, lips taut and mind set.

"What?" say the other three boys in voices slightly higher than they had probably intended too, looking at him as if he had grown an extra head. Dumbledore looks almost confused also, it such emotion can be on his face. Lily just looks like she's bursting with questions.

"I said, thanks but no thanks, Professor. Not any of us will take those places." The boys stare at him, wide-eyed and mouths open, heads wondering; but Remus knows he can't drag them again to a certain death, to a murky future plagued with shadows and uncertainties. Not them. Not ever.

"Well speak for yourself," hisses Sirius while James and Peter are still gaping, eyebrows drawn together and glaring at Remus with that curled lip that marks him as the Heir of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, filled with disdain and an addicting touch of madness. He stands up as he says: "I'm taking you on the offer, Professor."

"No you won't," challenges Remus, staring straight into the gray eyes that always drive him to his own form of oblivion, steely words pronounced a breath away from each other, marking a tempo of an order he only ever uses when he's the Alpha male in the pack.

Sirius leans down closer to Remus, shaking an accusatory finger into his face. "You've no claim over my actions, i Lupin /i , and I will do as I want to." There's childishness in his voice, a spoiled brat that always gets his way, and yet there's a glimpse of a grown-up in there, fighting for his convictions. There's rage oppressing Remus' airway, but just as he is about to open his mouth, Dumbledore – who is frowning slightly, speaks again.

"Did something happen in there to change you mind, Mr. Lupin? Something I should know about?" A not-so-subtle inquiry, a raised eyebrow that demands for the truth.

Green flashes inside Remus' mind, an imprint of lugubrious fireworks dancing behind his eyelids, and the taste of ashes on his tongue. Everyone looks at him, but no one adds anything after his words.

"No, Professor."

---

Remus skips classes that day, after he couldn't bear any more second of James passing note after note to Lily explaining her just what exactly had happened at the Headmaster's office. He stays by the window in their dorm, trying to read his father's favorite book and never turning a single page, printed letters mingling and surging from nowhere, swirling and dancing the most subtle of ballets for him, Es standing on tiptoe, Is _(mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa)_ pirouetting with red spots blossoming on their tutus.

There's a bang to the door, and then his three friends are there, Sirius at the lead looking murderous and eatable with his eyes ablaze. "Just _what the fuck_ is wrong with you?" he asks the second Remus sees him, arms crossed against his chest.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, stop acting innocent," says Peter, and Remus' attention is finally on them. If Peter is as angry as well, then he doesn't have a chance. He sighs, slowly, and lays his head on the frozen window, one eye fixed in the naked trees and the other on his three fuming friends.

"You're steaming yourself up in guilt, aren't you?" asks Sirius and manages to make it sound as a statement, as a truth. Remus doesn't answer, but he doesn't need to.

"Will you stop it _already_?" begs James, with his hands going up and down. "Remus none of this was your fault, all right?"

"He would have deserved it." Sirius serene words puncture a black (or maybe a Black) hole into his brain, and Remus jumps to his feet, face reddening from anger.

"No he wouldn't have!" He yells, too angry to pretend, too angry to _care_. "Don't you see? I'm just the same as him, thinking ending a life might make my problems go away, when the world _doesn't work like that_!" Remus is panting, and his voice falls as he adds "I'm just like him. Just like him."

Sirius moves forward unexpectedly, and he pushes him until the impact with the stone wall drives the breath out of Remus' lungs. "Don't _ever_ say that again!" Sirius growls, noses touching, breathe entering his own mouth. "You're _nothing_ like that poor excuse for a human being, and you are worth a thousand of men like him. Don't, just. Don't." Remus can sense more than see the anxious looks James and Peter are sharing across the room, wondering about this new development. Remus wriggles, and Sirius only comes closer.

"I meant it enough for the curse to work, Sirius, just what does that tells you?"

"But you _didn't do it_. You didn't, and that makes you a better person that I or weaker men are. You didn't, and that makes a world of difference." Sirius leans his forehead against Remus', and he suddenly wants to believe him so very much.

"He's right, Moony. You went against your very brain in order to keep your principles. You should be proud of yourself. I am."

"I am too," adds Peter, still looking somewhat edgy, and Remus _melts_.

He sags to the ground, bringing Sirius along as he clings to his shirt, crying and not stopping, not being _able_ to stop. Sirius holds him in the floor, cradling his head, and James and Peter come to sit on either side of him, but they don't try to break their embrace.

The guilt is still there, looking wild and hungry, lose on his brain, but he knows one day it will disappear.

(The fall asleep against the wall, and when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he can't help but trace Sirius lips with his fingertips in a silky touch that is meant to say _thank you_).


	15. Afterglow

What? It didn't take me months to update? Oh God, the sky might be falling!

Anyway, only one chapter to go, so this is starting to feel like closure. Oh so sad. Thank you for all the lovely reviews, you guys make my day. :))

**Afterglow**

**By: Nekare**

Remus is awoken with a kiss, and even when he has never been too fond of fairy tales and their red blood hooded girls he thinks he somehow understands their magic now, morning breath passing back and forth from uncaring lips stained too red and too warm. Sirius mumbles sleepily into his mouth, and Remus remains with half of him being lost among a land of curvy branches and color tainted words with wings, dreamy delight; and another becoming lost in the pure essence that makes Sirius himself, too dark hair and too light eyes, softness in his hands and harsh sounds on his voice.

He lets himself be kissed, and when he opens his eyes Sirius eyelashes shine softly in the light filtering from the curtains, stone on their backs and pains on their bones from the awkward position. "Hey," mutters Sirius, and Remus finally realizes James and Peter are back to their own beds, probably confused about the _them_ that's being born between him and Sirius.

"Hey back," he whispers, lips still brushing and air tingling. His eyes are half-lidded, and Sirius smiles at him lazily, hands worming inside Remus' worn blue jumper.

There's happiness at the end of Remus' stomach, the kind Remus had thought he'd never feel again.

---

The pull of that day's moon starts feeling on Remus' bones as classes begin, and the never ending melody of learning coming from Professor McGonagall's figure sounds like nails on a blackboard (in a sadistic kind of tune) to his ears, as his senses go on an overload, heart beating far faster than usual and eyes wide as the colors brighten until they hurt, preparing to shut down and remain black and white for his canine vision for the night.

(Black and white like the other night, a touch of red and green posing as death).

With the scratching of quills against parchment spelling anguish on his brain, he tries paying attention, but not even the thought that since January the Second (the day etched in his brain forever) he hasn't thought of homework once can make his mind settle. There's twenty-one kids in his class, twenty-one scents that tickle at his nose and Sirius' effortlessly worn after-shave (not at all like James' stinking cologne) drifts up his nostrils with a mind of its own, spreading colorless fumes behind his eyelids and making his mouth water.

He is trembling, as always before the moon, pale, and sickly, and to top it all, horny. His eyes keep closing on their own, a shutting screen of wanted oblivion from the pain in his joints, burning and numbing at his skin.

"You'll be in trouble if you go to sleep, Moony," says Peter from his right, thinking ahead as usual, and Remus nods and shakes his head to get the drowsiness out of his system. It doesn't work, though, and his head falls a bit forward again, eyes slipping close.

Then there's a hand on his thigh, and the gasp that comes from him makes several heads turn. Remus smiles edgily and sits straight, looking stiff and uncomfortable all of the sudden. There's sweat on his forehead, and his skin goes a lovely shade of red all over his body.

"Relax," Sirius breaths into his ear, and Remus shivers. The hand stays in there, warm and real, for the rest of the class, and Remus' thought are snowed in and left behind, forgotten.

---

Lily hugs him that night, silent and understanding, and Remus can almost feel his heart break.

---

Apparently, James and Peter have joined in a conspiracy against Remus. He's been naked with the boys thousands of times before, but he feels unsure and scared for the first time in ages as he starts getting undressed in the Shack, shedding his clothes as a snake skin, painfully slow, taking minutes with every single button.

Sirius is watching him from the bed.

The intensity of the gray gaze makes him nervous, self-conscious of his scarred body as his toes curl on themselves with the promise of dawns spent together, mouth dry. Sirius just looks, trying desperately to control his breathing, and Remus is far too tired to feel that feverish. "What are we doing?" he says when he can't handle the silence anymore, and he wants to hit himself at his own stupidity.

There's some blinking from Sirius part, and Remus shuts his eyes in a grimace. "Uh, we're waiting for you to change?"

"No. I mean, _us_." The question has plagued Remus so much, and yet he doesn't know if he wants an answer. They avoid each other's eyes, and both of them shift uncomfortable.

The pain starts in Remus' middle, and he doubles up a little, hand against his mouth as bile goes up to his mouth. Sirius is there in a second, touching his shoulders as he always had before. It's been three months since the night in which Snape almost died, and Sirius' touch feels a bit like heaven on earth at that moment, a craving he hadn't allowed himself and that suddenly surrounds him from every angle, dripping comfort into his very pores. He holds to Sirius' shirt, and for once, trusts him to stay in the room while the change happens.

He takes off the rest of the clothes quickly, the pain making him forget anything else that isn't Sirius' face buried in his neck, murmuring lost words of encourage that are just blown away by the breeze. His blunt fingernails dig into Sirius' skin, bunching his white shirt and creasing it with the full moon-made folds of years of suffering and yearning, and wanting and _living_; the creases he doesn't carry in his face but in his entrails.

"Because I fancy you rotten, you git, because I might even love you. _That's_, why I'm doing this." The whisper digs through layers of epidermal tissue and half-awake neurons, and Remus takes a deep breath. "Why are you?" Sirius mutters, and the skin under Remus' fingers turns into dark fur, leaving him with questions for company.

Remus _screams_, and his human mind gives way to the animalistic vision of the wolf.

---

There's frozen grass under his paws, a gray spot in the eternity of whites, snow until the edge of his vision. He growls to his make-shift pack, and the three animals try to keep up with the grace in every single one of the majestic wolf's movements.

The wolf bumps noses with the rat, and signals him to climb on top of the stag, caring for the weakest before anything else. The stag lowers his head on recognition, and the wolf barks his approval.

The dog smells sweet on his nose, thick warmth and silent submission, exposing his throat as an offering, up for grabs, and the wolf nips at it slowly, languidly even, and he can feel the dog biting back the rumble in the back of his throat that would mark his pleasure. The wolf fights for it until he gets it.

Then there's only open spaces and time to howl. His fur gets coated in fresh snow, tiny droplets melting already; and the wolf doesn't think of anything else.


	16. Lullaby

Warning: A bit of CAPSLOCK!Lily, because really, the boy must have gotten it from _somwhere._

Well, this is the end, folks. I hope you guys enjoyed this as much I did writing it. Thanks so much for your support!

**Lullaby**

**By: Nekare**

A paper plane wakes Remus the next morning, and as he stirs he is vaguely tempted to just roll over and keep on sleeping for the rest of his life, dreams still tasting sweet on his tongue and the receding mind of the wolf muttering about wind moving the branches, wildness by nightlight and snow beneath his feet. The plane keeps on nudging him until he sighs and grabs it, feeling the healthiest after a full moon in months.

(Years in disguise at months, that is what they had felt like, salty and ache tasting).

The parchment is coarse beneath his shaky fingertips, cut uneven and painted the soft yellow that always feels warm in his hands. Sirius' handwriting fills the page, and Remus strokes the letters with his thumb as he reads the way Madam Pomfrey had chased them out of the infirmary and how sorry they all are for that. The lonely letter before Sirius' name makes Remus' heart miss a beat in a childish way, and he berates himself from making such a bid deal out of such an insignificant thing. He still reads it again.

'L. Padfoot.'

---

After a while of begging, Remus is finally allowed to leave the Hospital Wing early, and as he changes into his clothes he can hear Madam Pomfrey muttering to herself that this had been one of his best moons yet. After the past two weeks, Remus had thought he'd tear himself to pieces, that he'd take out his frustrations, heartaches, rage on himself, and a whole new set of scars would map his body, crisscrossing and intertwining as the brain cell web in his brain, the one he hasn't used very much lately.

His right leg pains him a bit as he walks, but he swallows the discomfort down and keep smiling at people, walking ahead. He's just outside the Charms classroom when he decides he's just not up for classes, Flitwick's squeaky voice drilling into his head as he leans his forehead on the cool wood of the door. He goes back to the Common Room, and the parchment plane (now folded up as a plain square, better for hiding, but the original folds are still there, waiting to be reanimated again) crunches a little as he lays on one of the comfy couches, sighing tiredly into one of the scarlet cushions.

Sleep tricks him into a nap, and he dreams of the time his father had taught him to skate on the thin ice of a lake somewhat close home. The frozen water had been pure white, and Remus had imagined the deep orange fishes frozen as they had been swimming. Dad had laughed at that, but Remus had kept trying to find a spot of color under the ice.

This time, he has a smile on his face when he wakes up.

---

He drags Sirius behind an empty niche covered by a tapestry the moment he sees him, and his pulse becomes erratic under his fingertips. Remus can barely see the outline of Sirius' face in the darkness, and the tapestry makes the place smell of dust and age. This is their home, feeling warm and inviting, and they both try to keep the thoughts of a completely different castle at bay.

Sirius is being kissed before he knows it, and Remus' stomach jumps, and tingles, and burns in all kind of ways he's not sure are completely healthy, but then Sirius is putting a forearm around his neck, and every single hair on his body stands on end. He pants against Sirius' mouth, learning his contours with curious hands that just don't seem to stay put as they should, teasing through coarse fabric, slipping inside to make goose bumps painted paths.

"I do, too," Remus breaths out with some difficulty, face and body Gryffindor (friendship) red. Sirius blinks, looking mildly confused, and Remus kisses it away. "Your question from yesterday." _then_ Sirius remembers, and both of his hands move to cup Remus' face between them, shoulders hunched in the most vulnerable and beautiful expression Remus has ever seen on his face. Sirius kisses him sweetly, and a second later he licks a path just under Remus' ear. He breaths on it, warm and cold at the same time, and Remus' spine arches in soundless pleasure.

Remus closes his eyes, and wonders how he could have ever thought it hard to be in love with Sirius Black.

---

"I have a surprise for you," Lily says to him a while later, and makes a sign for him to follow. "You guys too." the rest of the Marauders look between each other in confusion, but they all comply with her, more out of shock than anything. She leads them through the snowy grounds, an imitation of their nightmare-ish night that can't help but make Remus shudder. She goes inside the forest, but they haven't walked that much when they get to a tiny clearing, a thick blanket laying on the frozen earth.

"Ta-da!" says Lily cheerily, moving her arms towards the blanket as if she were trying to sell a car. The boys say nothing, and she purses her lips before speaking again. "I thought a picnic would cheer you up, if you're feeling up to it, of course." her last words are filled with concern, and an anxious shade settles on her green eyes. From the corner of his eyes, he can see James staring at her adoringly, as if just couldn't believe his luck.

Peter still looks confused, and Sirius looks as if he might start to laugh, so Remus smiles quickly at her. "Of course, Lily. This was so thoughtful of you."

She waves it aside. "It's nothing, I just wanted to- Potter! STOP IT!" James stops guiltily as he raids the small basket Lily had hidden behind a tree. Remus laughs. Laughs so much, actually, at the absurdness of it all that everyone starts casting worrying glances at him. His throat isn't used to the sound anymore, and it carries a pang of hurt behind, like everything else at life does. He falls to the blanket, still holding his stomach from the mirth and happiness blooming there. The rest of them give him funny looks, but end up laughing themselves, and they all lay on the blanket with him, enjoying the mere company.

"So, want to tell us what you and Sirius were up to when you disappeared after lunch?" asks Peter slyly with mischief in his eyes, and Sirius swats him in distress.

"Oh, shut it, Wormtail." for Remus' extreme pleasure, Sirius has turned red to the roots of his hair, and Remus does too when the ghost of exploring hands crosses across his chest. There's more laughter, and intimate questions, and even Lily seems to find the merciless interrogatory fun.

"I'd love to see you all transformed, you know?" says Lily after a while, and she forces them to promise they'll let her see. James turns on his supposedly charming personality, and ends up with a pinch to the cheek. They spend hours in there, missing the afternoon classes and not caring at all.

In the end, they just lay there, looking up. The sky looks almost white against the dark, crooked branches, mist clinging to the air in swirly dream-like clouds that surround Remus' senses like a warm blanket, filling his lungs with the bittersweet oxygen of life.

The future looms black ahead, torn at the edges; but Remus stares at the sky instead of wondering, Sirius' hand in his, friends laying by his side, and enjoys the white sky, white moment, white little lie.

Remus sighs, and for a second, all of the anguish biting at his bones goes away with his breath.

THE END


End file.
